A medical charity scored a small victory Wednesday in its bid to break a US pharma giant's hold on an eye-wateringly expensive Hepatitis C drug when a European body partially revoked the firm's patent.

A new analytical test has been launched in the UK that provides sensitive, specific and efficient predictive analysis of a rare form of cancer from a simple urine sample. The ACC steroid analysis service will be marketed ...

The rising price for EpiPens, a drug delivery system that is crucial for persons experiencing potentially life-threatening allergic reactions, has resulted in outrage. The price increase, from about US$94 for a two-pack of ...

A human cell line genetically engineered to produce, store and release insulin in response to blood sugar levels in the human body could eliminate the need for daily injections for insulin-reliant diabetics.

India has granted a patent to US pharmaceutical giant Gilead for a blockbuster Hepatitis C drug, in a U-turn activists said could potentially stop affordable copies reaching millions of people in other countries.

Patent

A patent ( /ˈpætənt/ or /ˈpeɪtənt/) is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.

The procedure for granting patents, the requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. Typically, however, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must meet the relevant patentability requirements such as novelty and non-obviousness. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented invention without permission.

Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, patents should be available in WTO member states for any inventions, in all fields of technology, and the term of protection available should be a minimum of twenty years. In many countries, certain subject areas are excluded from patents, such as business methods and computer programs.